HowToFixComputers.com

shrew · Member Joined: 21 Dec 2005 Posts: 1

is this it? the ones located with one having the blue sticker on it

if so then they indeed to need to be soldered in place and would cause said problem. And if you are unsure about your soldering skill i would suggest you not attempt this till you are, find a friend or someone whom you trust to do the work.

pab1953 · Forum Regular Joined: 10 Nov 2005 Posts: 13

I don't think it's that one. My digital camera's out being fixed or I'd send a photo. Whatever the piece was, I glued it into place and it seemed to hold fine. But of course maybe it's connected to the problems I'm having. Yet everything works okay on the laptop when it's being powered from the battery. But now the battery's drained.

pab1953 · Forum Regular Joined: 10 Nov 2005 Posts: 13

On reflection, I guess this photo is accurate -- but the piece that fell off isn't visible -- it's "north" of the blue sticker item, under the cooling component.

sanmor8 · Member Joined: 19 Aug 2006 Posts: 2

I HAVE A PRESARIO 2100US AND IN ORDER TO GET POWER TO IT I HAVE TO BEND CORD

AND IN AC JACK SEEMS A LITTLE LOOSE

DO I NEED TO REPLACE AC JACK AND IF SO IS I CONNECTED TO THE MOTHERBOARD OR IS IT A SEPERATE PART

WHAT CAN I DO?

stargazer257 · PRO Joined: 04 Nov 2005 Posts: 65

sanmor,

Sounds like you need to replace the jack. It is a common problem with this model. The jack is soldered to the motherboard so is not an "easy" fix for someone without some experience. The part itself is pretty cheap (~$5 from auction site or other source). I combined my experience with that of others with the same problem on this thread to fix my 2100 about a year ago. There are others that have posted to this thread that offer a reasonable service to do this as well. I can't attest to them only because I don't know them or have used them myself.

Good luck.

spazbam · Member Joined: 21 Sep 2006 Posts: 3

HH · Guest

More than likely, the connector is hard soldered directly on the
motherboard, which will likely need to be pulled from the notebook.
Possdibly it can be made secure with a re-solder.

HH

"spazbam" <no@spam.invalid> wrote in message
news:12h564o2o327ef3@news.supernews.com...

spazbam · Member Joined: 21 Sep 2006 Posts: 3

I am assuming this is something you would not suggest a lay person doing without much computer background?

Max Lynn · Guest

I have had a similar problem with my Presario 2400. I disassembled the
entire unit (and believe me it is a terribly intricate job). What I found
was that the power plug is on a small board (less than 1" square) which
plugs into the motherboard. I unsoldered the external plug from this small
board, and after playing around with it, I found that the little plastic tip
on the male side of the plug was preventing contact from being made with the
on-board, female side of the plug. I trimmed some of the plastic away from
the tip (sort of made it conical in shape) and it has been working
reasonably well since then. What was the amazing is that I was able to
resolder the plug to the board and completely reassemble the whole laptop
and it worked!! I say the plug has been working "reasonably well". That is
to say, if you aren't careful when you move the machine around, the cord
side (male) part of the connector sort of works itself out of the side of
the unit very easily. This is sure a weak link in this whole setup, but I
don't have a good solution. I suppose you might be able to find a new
on-board connector, but I tried and had a lot of trouble identifying the
correct part.

Good luck
Max Lynn
"HH" <hahunt42@kgexpress.net> wrote in message
news:4512e0a2$0$34081$815e3792@news.qwest.net...

spazbam · Member Joined: 21 Sep 2006 Posts: 3

Wow, thanks. Yeah i got a little bold last night and disassembled "some" of the backing, i couldnt figure out why it wouldnt come off completely i have to read the rest of the post to find out how others did it. But, i did find out that is most certainly the little plug, it's just a tiny little plastic piece that appears to have maybe a metal? tiny ring on the bottom. I am tempted to get the part of ebay, but i havent the slightest idea what it means to solder something. I can figure things out, but im wondering if i botch the job if i ruin the computer completely. I called a couple of places and they want to charge 75 an hour just to look at it. One guy said i needed a new battery? Yes these are the professionals. Theyu are all in agreement on one thing, i should get a new mother board. Some people have mentioned a docking station or "port replicator". Are these a viable alternative? I could still disconnect from the station any time i wanted correct? They are just a power up method alternative to this mess? I appreciate all of your help guys. Thank You!!

[quote="Max Lynn"]I have had a similar problem with my Presario 2400. I disassembled the
entire unit (and believe me it is a terribly intricate job). What I found
was that the power plug is on a small board (less than 1" square) which
plugs into the motherboard. I unsoldered the external plug from this small
board, and after playing around with it, I found that the little plastic tip
on the male side of the plug was preventing contact from being made with the
on-board, female side of the plug. I trimmed some of the plastic away from
the tip (sort of made it conical in shape) and it has been working
reasonably well since then. What was the amazing is that I was able to
resolder the plug to the board and completely reassemble the whole laptop
and it worked!! I say the plug has been working "reasonably well". That is
to say, if you aren't careful when you move the machine around, the cord
side (male) part of the connector sort of works itself out of the side of
the unit very easily. This is sure a weak link in this whole setup, but I
don't have a good solution. I suppose you might be able to find a new
on-board connector, but I tried and had a lot of trouble identifying the
correct part.

Good luck
Max Lynn
"HH" <hahunt42@kgexpress.net> wrote in message
news:4512e0a2$0$34081$815e3792@news.qwest.net...
[quote]More than likely, the connector is hard soldered directly on the
motherboard, which will likely need to be pulled from the notebook.
Possdibly it can be made secure with a re-solder.

spazbam · Member Joined: 21 Sep 2006 Posts: 3

Wow, thanks. Yeah i got a little bold last night and disassembled "some" of the backing, i couldnt figure out why it wouldnt come off completely i have to read the rest of the post to find out how others did it. But, i did find out that is most certainly the little plug, it's just a tiny little plastic piece that appears to have maybe a metal? tiny ring on the bottom. I am tempted to get the part of ebay, but i havent the slightest idea what it means to solder something. I can figure things out, but im wondering if i botch the job if i ruin the computer completely. I called a couple of places and they want to charge 75 an hour just to look at it. One guy said i needed a new battery? Yes these are the professionals. Theyu are all in agreement on one thing, i should get a new mother board. Some people have mentioned a docking station or "port replicator". Are these a viable alternative? I could still disconnect from the station any time i wanted correct? They are just a power up method alternative to this mess? I appreciate all of your help guys. Thank You!!

[quote="Max Lynn"]I have had a similar problem with my Presario 2400. I disassembled the
entire unit (and believe me it is a terribly intricate job). What I found
was that the power plug is on a small board (less than 1" square) which
plugs into the motherboard. I unsoldered the external plug from this small
board, and after playing around with it, I found that the little plastic tip
on the male side of the plug was preventing contact from being made with the
on-board, female side of the plug. I trimmed some of the plastic away from
the tip (sort of made it conical in shape) and it has been working
reasonably well since then. What was the amazing is that I was able to
resolder the plug to the board and completely reassemble the whole laptop
and it worked!! I say the plug has been working "reasonably well". That is
to say, if you aren't careful when you move the machine around, the cord
side (male) part of the connector sort of works itself out of the side of
the unit very easily. This is sure a weak link in this whole setup, but I
don't have a good solution. I suppose you might be able to find a new
on-board connector, but I tried and had a lot of trouble identifying the
correct part.

Good luck
Max Lynn
"HH" <hahunt42@kgexpress.net> wrote in message
news:4512e0a2$0$34081$815e3792@news.qwest.net...
[quote]More than likely, the connector is hard soldered directly on the
motherboard, which will likely need to be pulled from the notebook.
Possdibly it can be made secure with a re-solder.

spazbam · Member Joined: 21 Sep 2006 Posts: 3

Wow, thanks. Yeah i got a little bold last night and disassembled "some" of the backing, i couldnt figure out why it wouldnt come off completely i have to read the rest of the post to find out how others did it. But, i did find out that is most certainly the little plug, it's just a tiny little plastic piece that appears to have maybe a metal? tiny ring on the bottom. I am tempted to get the part of ebay, but i havent the slightest idea what it means to solder something. I can figure things out, but im wondering if i botch the job if i ruin the computer completely. I called a couple of places and they want to charge 75 an hour just to look at it. One guy said i needed a new battery? Yes these are the professionals. Theyu are all in agreement on one thing, i should get a new mother board. Some people have mentioned a docking station or "port replicator". Are these a viable alternative? I could still disconnect from the station any time i wanted correct? They are just a power up method alternative to this mess? I appreciate all of your help guys. Thank You!!

[quote="Max Lynn"]I have had a similar problem with my Presario 2400. I disassembled the
entire unit (and believe me it is a terribly intricate job). What I found
was that the power plug is on a small board (less than 1" square) which
plugs into the motherboard. I unsoldered the external plug from this small
board, and after playing around with it, I found that the little plastic tip
on the male side of the plug was preventing contact from being made with the
on-board, female side of the plug. I trimmed some of the plastic away from
the tip (sort of made it conical in shape) and it has been working
reasonably well since then. What was the amazing is that I was able to
resolder the plug to the board and completely reassemble the whole laptop
and it worked!! I say the plug has been working "reasonably well". That is
to say, if you aren't careful when you move the machine around, the cord
side (male) part of the connector sort of works itself out of the side of
the unit very easily. This is sure a weak link in this whole setup, but I
don't have a good solution. I suppose you might be able to find a new
on-board connector, but I tried and had a lot of trouble identifying the
correct part.

Good luck
Max Lynn
"HH" <hahunt42@kgexpress.net> wrote in message
news:4512e0a2$0$34081$815e3792@news.qwest.net...
[quote]More than likely, the connector is hard soldered directly on the
motherboard, which will likely need to be pulled from the notebook.
Possdibly it can be made secure with a re-solder.

spazbam · Member Joined: 21 Sep 2006 Posts: 3

Okay, i think i found someone who is going to give it a shot for me...but he wants one thing, a picture/diagram of where the piece should end up on the board...the little piece actually fell out of the back when i opened it up he can't place based on a prior positioning. Any suggestions? I see the picture above, but i cant tell which is the blue sticker and where thje location is ni regards to the rest of the board. Any suggestions?

stargazer257 · PRO Joined: 04 Nov 2005 Posts: 65

In the picture above (top of page 4 here at howtofixcomputers.com) the power jack is just out of the frame, above the left side of it. The person posting the picture was indicating a part (not the power jack) that fell off his motherboard, so don't focus on the "blue sticker," it's not relevant to what you want to repair. BTW, the view in the photo is from the left side of the laptop.

Per your request for a picture, I can't help (I don't have the laptop anymore).

As for the need for a picture, I seriously doubt that your repair person would need it. The power plug you are replacing is relatively big and it's obvious where it goes on the motherboard, plus it lines up with the hole in the back of the laptop.

It's been about a year since I did my repair and IIRC, there were three tabs that connected the jack to the MB. They were a bit tough to extract (especially the one that was broken off!), but careful and patient persistence paid off. It was one of the more challenging jobs (for me) to attempt (due to risk of more damage), but the reward for a $5 replacement part correctly installed was worth it.

Other suggestions: It sounds as if you read this thread so heed the advice and warnings. I used what had been posted to date when I did my repair to help me and added my comments and experiences to hopefully help others with the same dilemma. Make sure your repair person reads this thread as well. It it best read before you attempt the repair than after.

Good luck and let us know how it goes,

SG257

Max Lynn · Guest

Not sure your unit is the same as mine. When my unit was disassembled, the
female plug for the input power was to be found on a tiny (roughly one inch
square) "daughter" circuit board. This tiny board in turn had a second plug
which connected it to the system/motherboard. There was, in my case, no
problem with this female plug or any of the internals, but I didn't discover
that until I had desoldered the female plug from the tiny circuit board. I
can't decipher from what you have described how the piece that fell from
your unit fits into this picture. None of the parts that I disassembled
would have "fallen" from the case without some urging on my part.

Now it's difficult to describe, but I isolated my problem to the male plug
which is on the end of the small wire which comes from the external power
brick to the laptop. The small male plug on the end which goes into the
side of the laptop has a short metal band near the end the end, and at the
very tip, there's a plastic tip. The metal band is the DC ground for the
18vDC coming from the power brick. This metal band is supposed make contact
with a leaf spring-like contact within the laptop's female plug (the one
that I desoldered). At the very tip of the external, male plug, I found
that there was about a one-sixteenth inch of plastic tip which was a larger
diameter than the metal band providing DC ground. This plastic tip would
make contact with the leaf-like contact in the plug on the laptop, and not
allow the metal band to connect electrically to the laptop's DC ground. I
filed the plastic tip down to decrease its diameter, and Voila!, I got
continuity through the plug for the 18 VDC ground from the power brick.

Does any of this help?

Max Lynn

----- Original Message -----
From: spazbam
Newsgroups: alt.sys.pc-clone.compaq
Sent: Wednesday, September 27, 2006 8:16 AM
Subject: Re: Presario 2100 broken power connector

Okay, i think i found someone who is going to give it a shot for
me...but he wants one thing, a picture/diagram of where the piece
should end up on the board...the little piece actually fell out of
the back when i opened it up he can't place based on a prior
positioning. Any suggestions? I see the picture above, but i cant
tell which is the blue sticker and where thje location is ni regards
to the rest of the board. Any suggestions?

"spazbam" <no@spam.invalid> wrote in message
news:12hl5ei4fs14ud4@news.supernews.com...